To be sure, with mortgage rates where they are, 'sideways' isn't necessarily such a bad thing.  From a market-watching perspective, however, we're quickly finding ourselves at risk of falling back asleep again.  The end of August was great for bonds with the China-inspired market panic.  September was almost exclusively flat with the exception of a last minute puckering ahead of the Fed (i.e. yields moved quickly higher last Tuesday).  The post-Fed move was strong and it matched the rhetorical thrust of the Announcement and Yellen's press conference.

But then yesterday's trading threw a wrench in the works.  It wasn't the end of the world, by any means, but it was enough weakness to derail the post-Fed trend.  In fact, it left both stocks and bonds very much in the middle of their recent trends.

Bonds are particularly equivocal.  When we look at a few technical overlays for 10yr yields, we are right in the middle.  10's closed on the center Bollinger band yesterday as well as the zero line on the MACD overlay.  Not only that, but the MACD lines are very close to converging.  If these charts are confusing, don't worry.  An intimate understanding of these overlays isn't important.  Just know that several mainstream technical studies (which are merely lenses through which to examine market movement, NOT crystal balls) agree that longer term yields are about as equivocal as they get from a technical perspective.

With the Fed in the rearview, we can lean on our knowledge of the Fundamental environment and assume that bond markets won't simply park it here for the next 6 weeks.  They'll likely make a foray or two, higher or lower.  The moves could be driven by data, but as we saw yesterday, they can also be driven by something as frustrating and esoteric as corporate bond issuance.

Today's calendar is even more sparse, with no top tier data releases.  This is advantageous, in a way, because it gives us an opportunity to observe more of the unfiltered flavor of the market post-Fed--assuming, of course, that corporate issuance doesn't distort reality again.